Card Sort cluster analysis tool 1.0

Modified Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:54:45 +0300.

Card sorting is a user research method used to determing and verify the structure and hierarchy of a website or service. It is fast, reliable and inexpensive and can provide insight into users' mental models.

Card sorting can be done with physical cards or over the web. One of the best on-line card sorting tools is OptimalSort, which can be tried for free. OptimalSort only provides a list of results, which is very difficult to understand and analyze. This is where this Card Sort cluster analysis tool comes into use. It takes the results list from OptimalSort and translates them into an understandable table, similarity matrix and an interactive treeview. See sample data and sample output. Please note that neither your data nor the results are stored. If you encounter problems, please send feedback to aapo.puskala@userpoint.fi.

How to use

1. Create a card sort project with OptimalSort (can be done for free)
2. Export All raw data in CSV (Comma Separated) format
3. Upload the file with the form below and let the script analyze your data. This will take a few seconds.
4. Send feedback to aapo.puskala@userpoint.fi. This tool is free and will remain free. All I ask is to let me know how to make it better.

Planned updates

• PDF generation. This would make the output easier to download and to print. Currently it is a bit difficult to get a neat printout.

Changes

• Feb 23 2009 - Moved user comments from the table to a separate list
• Feb 22 2009 - Added output time in seconds (top of result page)
• Feb 22 2009 - Found a way to generate PDFs. Not in use yet.
• Feb 21 2009 - Changed the way clusters are named, based on user-given category labels. The new methods is much more accurate.
• Feb 21 2009 - Cleaned the whole script, renamed variables, removed unnecessary loops etc. Everything is simpler and easier to understand & update
• Feb 20 2009 - Added a table of clusters at the end of the result
• Feb 18 2009 - Added a list of changes and planned updates

Known bugs and problems

• User login time and logout time are incorrect in the CSV from OptimalSort. It seems that login time is New Zealand time, but logout is UTC. This means that the logout time is before the login time, which causes the average reply time to appear blank or zero. In addition, logout time does not include seconds. OptimalSort has been notified of this.
• Double quotation marks " are not escaped with \ in OptimalSort CSV files. This will cause in most cases, that at least some of the data from users who used " in their feedback field, can not be analyzed. OptimalSort has been notified of this.
• SVG file format is not supported by Internet Explorer. The same image is shown in both SVG and JPG format. SVG is smaller, better, searhable and interactive. Please switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox. You will not regret it.
• Excel makes the CSV unreadable. MS Excel adds extra quotes in the file, which will make it unreadable (without considerable extra effort). You may open the file in Excel, but do not save it over the original one.
• Saving the results is tricky. The upcaming PDF format will fix this. Until then, please try printing the page, but instead of printing, save it as PDF. On a Mac this works right away, Windows users need Adobe Acrobat. You can also try copy-pasting the result into another application.
• At the moment this tool supports only OptimalSort. If you'd like to use other card sorting services, please send me a sample data file and if available, a description of it.

When downloading your data from OptimalSort, select All raw data in CSV format.

CSV file Leave blank for demo sample.csv Skip categories labeled Show processing log